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LOWELL 
DAY- BY- DAY 



EDITEDBY 



LUCY- L- CABLE 




NEW YORK 
TYCROWELL&.CO 

PUBLISHERS 




.C3 



Copyright, igio 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



GIA268356 



\^ 










i 9 



JANUARY 



JANUARY FIRST 

^ I 'therefore think not the Past is wise 

alone, 

For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best, 

And thou shalt love it only as the nest 

Whence glory-winged things to Heaven have 

flown. 

Sonnets. 

JANUARY SECOND 

From one stage of our being to the next 
We pass unconscious o'er a slender bridge, 
The momentary work of unseen hands, 
Which crumbles down behind us; looking back. 
We see the other shore, the gulf between. 
And, marvelling how we won to where we stand, 
Content ourselves to call the builder Chance. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

JANUARY THIRD 

The heart grows richer that its lot is poor — 

God blesses want with larger sympathies. 

A Legend of Brittany. 

[ I ] 



/J' 



JANUARY FOURTH 

Evil its errand hath, as well as Good. 

Prometheus. 

JANUARY FIFTH 

God scatters love on every side, 
Freely among his children all, 
And alw^ays hearts are lying open wide. 
Wherein some grains may fall. 

An Incident in a Railroad Car. 

JANUARY SIXTH 

Reason should stand at the helm, though the 
wayward breezes of feeling must puff the sails. 
Nature has hinted at this, by setting the eyes 
higher than the heart. 

Con'uersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JANUARY SEVENTH 

Higher purity is greater strength. 

Prometheus. 

JANUARY EIGHTH 

God doth not work as man works, but makes all 
The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend. 

A Legend of Brittany. 

JANUARY NINTH 

Only the soul hath power o'er itself. 

Rhcecus. 

[2] 



JANUARY TENTH 

Rivers with low banks have always the com- 
pensation of giving a sense of entire fulness. 

A Moosehead Journal. 

JANUARY ELEVENTH 

Who is it will not dare himself to trust ? 

Who is it hath not strength to stand alone ? 
Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST ? 

He and his works, like sand, from earth are 

blown. 

To W. L. Garrison. 

JANUARY TWELFTH 

Solitude, that holds apart 

The past and future, giving the soul room 

To search into itself. 

Prometheus. 

JANUARY THIRTEENTH 

I held that a man should have travelled 
thoroughly round himself and the great terra 
incognita just outside and inside his own thresh- 
old, before he undertook voyages of discovery 

to other worlds. 

Cambridge Thirty Years Ago. 

JANUARY FOURTEENTH 

But after all. Nature, though she may be more 
beautiful, is nowhere so entertaining as in man. 

In the Mediterranean. 

[3] 



JANUARY FIFTEENTH 

Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right 
To the firm centre lays its moveless base. 

Prometheui. 

JANUARY SIXTEENTH 

That Providence, 
Which shapes from out our elements awry 
The grace and order that we wonder at. 
The mystic harmony of right and wrong, 
Both working out His wisdom and our good. 

V Erfvoi. 

JANUARY SEVENTEENTH Franklin's Birthday. 

No man is born into the world, whose work 
Is not born with him ; there is always work. 
And tools to work withal, for those who will. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

JANUARY EIGHTEENTH 

All nations have their message from on high. 
Each the messiah of some central thought. 
For the fulfilment and delight of Man : 
One has to teach that labor is divine; 
Another Freedom; and another Mind; 
And all, that God is open-eyed and just. 
The happy centre and calm heart of all. 

V Envoi. 

[4] 



JANUARY NINETEENTH 

It always comes easier to us to comprehend 
why we receive than why we pay. 

A Moosehead Journal. 

JANUARY TWENTIETH 

Hospitahty, Hke so many other things, is recip- 
rocal, and the guest must bring his half, or it is 
naught. The prosperity of a dinner lies in the 

heart of him that eats it. 

Italy. 

JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST 

The future works out great men's destinies; 
The present is enough for common souls. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 



JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND 

The next development of Genius is as unpre- 
dictable as the glory of the next sunset. . . . 
Everything is impossible until it is done. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JANUARY TWENTY-THIRD 

There still is need of martyrs and apostles. 

There still are texts for never-dying song: 
From age to age man's still aspiring spirit 

[5] 



Finds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes, 

And thou in larger measure dost inherit 

What made thy great forerunners free and 

wise. 

Ode. 

JANUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 

Looking within myself, I note how thin 

A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate, 

Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin: ■ 
In my own heart I find the worst man's mate. 
Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades. 

JANUARY TWENTY-FIFTH Burns' s Birthday. 

To write some earnest verse or line, 
Which, seeking not the praise of art, 
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine 
In the untutored heart. 

He, who doth this, in verse or prose, 
May be forgotten in his day. 
But surely shall be crowned at last with those 
Who live and speak for aye. 

An Incident in a Railroad Car. 



JANUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 

For my part, I am satisfied that I am on the 
right path so long as I can see anything to make 

[6] 



me happier, anything to make me love man, and 
therefore God, the more. 

Con'uersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JANUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

All thoughts that mould the age begin 
Deep down within the primitive soul, 
And from the many slowly upward win 
To one who grasps the whole. 

An Incident in a Railroad Car. 

JANUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

The intellect may be sceptical, but the heart 
will believe any beautiful miracle in behalf of 
what it loves or reveres; and the heart, after all, 
will have the last word in such matters. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JANUARY TWENTY-NINTH McKinleys Birthday. 

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes — they were 
souls that stood alone. 

While the men they agonized for hurled the con- 
tumelious stone. 

Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden 
beam incline 

To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their 
faith divine. 

By one man's plain truth to manhood and to 

God's supreme design. 

The Present Crisis. 

[7] 



JANUARY THIRTIETH 

Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, 

And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, 

Leaving it richer for the growth of truth ; 

But Good, once put in action or in thought, 

Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed 

down 

The ripe germs of a forest. 

Prometheus. 

JANUARY THIRTY-FIRST 

The wise man maintains a hospitable mind. 
He scruples not to entertain thoughts, no matter 
how strange and foreign they may be, and to ask 
news of them of realms which he has never 

explored. 

Con-versations on Some of the Old Poets. 



[8] 



FEBRUARY 



FEBRUARY FIRST 

A N imitation of style is one thing; the use of 
the same material is quite another. The 
marble of Pentelicus may be carved into other 
shapes as noble as the Phoebus or the Jupiter. 

CoTfuersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

FEBRUARY SECOND 

The great spirit does not fling down the gaunt- 
let to Death, but welcomes him as a brother- 
angel, who, knowing the way better, is to be his 
guide to his new working-place, and who, per- 
chance, also led him hither from some dimmer 

sphere. 

The Old Dramatists. 

FEBRUARY THIRD * 

One step beyond life's work-day things. 
One more beat of the soul's broad wings, 
One deeper sorrow sometimes brings 
The spirit into that great Vast 
Where neither future is nor past; 

[9] 



None knoweth how he entered there, 

But, waking, finds his spirit where 

He thought an angel could not soar. 

And, what he called false dreams before. 

The very air about his door. 

A Mystical Ballad. 

FEBRUARY FOURTH 

Her thoughts are never memories. 

But ever changeful, ever new. 

Fresh and beautiful as dew 

That in a dell at noontide lies. 

lanthe. 



FEBRUARY FIFTH 

Love, for others' sake that springs. 

Gives half their charm to lovely things. 

Impartiality. 

FEBRUARY SIXTH 

As in the womb of mother Earth 

The seeds of plants and forests lie 

Age upon age and never die — 

So in the souls of all men wait, 

Undyingly, the seeds of Fate; 

Chance breaks the clod and forth they spring, 

Filling blind men with wondering. 

Bellerophon. 

[ 10] 



FEBRUARY SEVENTH Dicken/s Birthday. 

To the poet nothing is mean, but everything 
on earth is a fitting altar to the supreme beauty. 
Cotf-versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

FEBRUARY EIGHTH Ruskin s Birthday . 

His love of beauty was too sincere not to have 
made him truly pious. It was not a holy-day 
dress, folded up and lavendered for one day in 
the week; but his singing-robe, which he wore 
in the by-lanes and hovels of every-day life. 

CoJi'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

FEBRUARY NINTH 

Whatever has given the spirit a fresh delight 
has established for itself a fair title in fee 
simple to the room it has taken up on our planet. 

The Old Dramatists. 

FEBRUARY TENTH 

Why should men ever be afraid to die, but 
that they regard the spirit as secondary to that 
which is but its mere appendage and conveniency, 
its symbol, its word, its means of visibility ? 

Conquer sations on Some of the Old Poets. 

FEBRUARY ELEVENTH ' 

But that the soul is noble, we 
Could never dream what nobleness had been; 

[ II ] 



Be what ye dream ! and earth shall see 
A greater greatness than she e'er hath seen. 

Sphinx. 



FEBRUARY TWELFTH Lincoln's Birthday. 

A name earth wears forever next her heart; 
One of the few that have a right to rank 
With the true Makers. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 



FEBRUARY THIRTEENTH 

Not yet hath all been said, 
Or done, or longed for, that is truly great. 

Sonnets 



FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH St. Valentine's Day. 

The language of the heart never grows obso- 
lete or antiquated, but falls as musically from 
the tongue now as when it was first uttered. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 



FEBRUARY FIFTEENTH 

We all must suffer, if we aught would know; 

Life is a teacher stern, and wisdom's crown 

Is oft a crown of thorns. 

Sonnets. 

[ 12] 



FEBRUARY SIXTEENTH 

Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, 
And there 's such music in her, such strange 

rhythm, 
As makes men's memories her joyous slaves. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 



FEBRUARY SEVENTEENTH 

O Lord, ef folks wuz made so 's 't they could see 
The begnet-pint there is to an idee ! 
Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in steel; 
They run your soul thru an' you never feel, 
But crawl about an' seem to think you 're livin'. 
Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's forgivin'. 
Till you come bunt ag'in a real live feet. 
An' go to pieces v^hen you 'd ough' to ect ! 

The Bigloiv Papers. 

FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH 

We should love all things better, if v^e kneve 
What claims the meanest have upon our hearts. 

' Sonnets. 

FEBRUARY NINETEENTH 

Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart 
Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong 
With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left; 

[ 13] 



And faith, which is but hope grown wise; and 

love 
And patience, which at last shall overcome. 

Prometheus. 



FEBRUARY TWENTIETH 

And he who scorns the least of Nature's works 
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all. 

Khcecus. 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIRST 

O might we only speak but what we feel, 
Might the tongue pay but what the heart doth 

owe, 
Not Heaven's great thunder, when, deep peal on 

peal. 
It shakes the earth, could rouse our spirits so, 
Or to the soul such majesty reveal. 
As two short words half-spoken faint and low ! 

Sonnets. 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND 

Washington $ Birthday. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment 

to decide. 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the 

good or evil side. 

the Present Crisis. 

[ H] 



FEBRUARY TWENTY-THIRD 

The truth is, we think hghtly of Nature's 
penny shows, and estimate what we see by the 
cost of the ticket. Empedocles gave his life for a 
pit-entrance to ^tna, and no doubt found his 
account in it. 

A Moosehead Journal. 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 

The driving-wheels of all-powerful nature are 
in the back of the head, and, as man is the 
highest type of organization, so a nation is 
better or worse as it advances toward the highest 
type of man, or recedes from it. 

Italy. 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIFTH 

New times demand new measures and new men. 
A Glance behind the Curtain. 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 

Why should we ever weary of this life .? 
Our souls should widen ever, not contract, 
Grow stronger, and not harder, in the strife, 
Filling each moment with a noble act. 

Sonnets. 

[ 15] 



FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Longfelloxv s Birthday. 

You must n't fling mud-balls at Longfellow so, 

Does it make a man worse that his character 's 

such 

As to make his friends love him (as you think) 

too much ? 

A Fable for Critics. 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

A graciousness in giving that doth make 
The small'st gift greatest, and a sense most meek 
Of worthiness, that doth not fear to take 
From others, but which always fears to speak 
Its thanks in utterance, for the giver's sake. 

Irene. 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-NINTH Leap Tear. 

All things are circular; the Past 

Was given us to make the Future great; 

And the void Future shall at last 

Be the strong rudder of an after fate. 

Sphinx. 



[ i6] 



MARCH 



MARCH FIRST 

I HESE rugged, wintry days I scarce could 

bear, 

Did I not know that, in the early spring. 

When wild March winds upon their errands sing. 

Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air. 

Like those same winds, when, startled from their 

lair, 

They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks 

From icy cares. 

Sonnets. 

MARCH SECOND 

Get but the truth once uttered, and 't is like 
A star new-born, that drops into its place, 
And which, once circling in its placid round. 
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

MARCH THIRD 

Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected. 

Irene, 

[ 17] 



MARCH FOURTH 

We cannot give too much for the genial stoi- 
cism which, when Hfe flouts us and says, Put that 
in your pipe and smoke it! can pufF away with as 
sincere a rehsh as if it were tobacco of Mount 
Lebanon in a narghileh of Damascus. 

Cambridge Thirty Tears Ago, 

MARCH FIFTH 

"My young frien', you 've larned neow thet 
wut a man kin see any day for nawthin', childern 
half price, he never doos see. Nawthin' pay, 
nawthin' vally." 

A Moosehead Journal. 



MARCH SIXTH Mrs. Brouuning" s Birthday. 

That gift of patient tenderness, 
The instinctive wisdom of a woman's heart. 

L" Ennjoi. 

MARCH SEVENTH 

The meaning of all things in us — 
Yea, in the lives we give our souls — doth lie; 

Make, then, their meaning glorious 
By such a life as need not fear to die ! 

Sphinx. 



[ i8] 



MARCH EIGHTH 

She doeth little kindnesses, 

Which most leave undone, or despise; 

For naught that sets one heart at ease, 

And giveth happiness or peace, 

Is low-esteemed in her eyes. 

My Lo've. 

MARCH NINTH 

There are moods in which pleasurable emo- 
tion is all that the mind is capable of, and the 
power of bestowing this merely is not to be con- 
demned. Beauty is always use. 

"> ne Old Dramatists. 

MARCH TENTH 

There is no sex in noble thoughts, and deeds 
agreeing with them; and such recruits do equally 
good service in the army of truth, whether they 
are brought in by women or men. 

The Old Dramatists. 

MARCH ELEVENTH 

God's love and man's are of the self-same blood. 

And He can see that always at the door 
Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet 
Knocks to return and cancel all its debt. 

A Legend of Brittany. 

[ 19] 



MARCH TWELFTH 

We are of far too infinite an essence 

To rest contented with the Hes of Time. 

Ode. 

MARCH THIRTEENTH 

Where'er a human heart doth wear 
Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves, 
Where'er a human spirit strives 

After a life more true and fair, 

There is the true man's birthplace grand, 

His is a world-wide fatherland ! 

The Fatherland. 

MARCH FOURTEENTH 

The busy world shoves angrily aside 

The man who stands with arms akimbo set, 

Until occasion tells him what to do; 

And he who waits to have his task marked out 

Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 



MARCH FIFTEENTH 

God bends from out the deep and says : 
"I gave thee the great gift of life; 

Wast thou not called in many ways ? 
Are not my earth and heaven at strife ? 

[20] 



I gave thee of my seed to sow, 

Bringest thou me my hundred-fold?" 

Can I look up with face aglow, 

And answer, "Father, here is gold"? 

Extreme Unction. 



MARCH SIXTEENTH 

For whom the heart of man shuts out. 
Sometimes the heart of God takes in. 

Ana fences them all round about 

With silence mid the world's loud din. 

The Forlorn. 



MARCH SEVENTEENTH St. Patrick's Day. 

^ And the far-heard voice of Spring, 
From sunny slopes comes wandering. 
Calling the violets from the sleep 
That bound them under snow-drifts deep. 
To open their childlike, asking eyes 
On the new summer's paradise. 

Music. 



MARCH EIGHTEENTH 

Toil only gives the soul to shine. 
And makes rest fragrant and benio-n. 

The Heritage. 

[21 ] 



MARCH NINETEENTH 

No man of genius was ever so fully appreciated 
by contemporaries as to make him forget the 
future. A poet must needs be before his own 
age to be even with posterity. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

MARCH TWENTIETH 

The Anglo Saxon race has accepted the 
primal curse as a blessing, has deified work, and 
would not have thanked Adam for abstaining 
from the apple. 

A Moosehead Journal, 

MARCH TWENTY-FIRST 

Nor can I count him happiest who has never 
Been forced with his own hand his chains to 

sever. 
And tor himself find out the way divine; 
He never knew the aspirer's glorious pains, 
He never earned the struggle's priceless gains. 

Trial. 

MARCH TWENTY-SECOND 

Life is joy, and love is power, 
Death all fetters doth unbind, 
Strength and wisdom only flower 
When we toil for all our kind. 

[22] 



Hope is truth — tlic future glveth 

More than present takes away, 
And the soul forever hveth 

Nearer Clod from day to d'Ay. 

The Rose : A Enllad. 

MARCH TWENTY-THIRD 

One age moves onwaul, and the next huihls up 
Cities and gorgeous pahices, where stood 
i'he rude log luits of those who tamed the wild, 
Rearing from out the forests they had felled 
The goodly framework of a fairer state; 
The huilder's trowel and the settler's axe 
Are seldom wielded hy the selfsame hand. 

A Glance behind the (Curtain. 

MARCH TWENTY-FOURTH 

God sends his teachers unto eveiy age. 

To every clime, and every race of men. 

With revelations fitted to their growth 

And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of 

Truth 

Into the selfish rule of one sole race. 

Rhftcus. 

MARCH TWENTY-FIFTH 

If women fulfilled their divine errand there 
would he no need of reforming societies. The 
memory of the eyes that hung over a man in in- 

[23] 



fancy and childhood will haunt him through all 
his after life. If they were good and holy they 
will cheer and encourage him in every noble 
deed, and shame him out of every meanness and 
compromise. 

The Old Dramatists. 

MARCH TWENTY-SIXTH 

O, block by block, with sore and sharp endeavor, 
Lifelong we build these human natures up 
Into a temple fit for freedom's shrine, 
And Trial ever consecrates the cup 
Wherefrom we pour her sacrificial wine. 

Trial. 

MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH 

If the chosen soul could never be alone 
In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God, 
No greatness ever had been dreamed or done; 
Among dull hearts a prophet never grew; 
The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude. 

Columbus. 

MARCH TWENTY-EIGHTH 

He is a coward who would borrow 
A charm against the present sorrow 
From the vague Future's promise of delight. 

To the Future. 

[24] 



MARCH TWENTY-NINTH 

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes 

ancient good uncouth ; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would 

keep abreast with Truth. 

T^lie Present Crisis. 

MARCH THIRTIETH 

One strip of bark may feed the broken tree, 
Giving to some few limbs a sickly green; 
And one light shower on the hills, I ween, 
May keep the spring from drying utterly. 
Thus seemeth it with these our hearts to be; 
Hope is the strip of bark, the shower of rain. 
And so they are not wholly crushed with pain. 

So7inets. 

MARCH THIRTY-FIRST 

I feel an undefined respect for the man who 
has seen the sea-serpent. He is to his brother- 
fishers what the poet is to his fellow-men. Where 
they have seen nothing better than a school of 
horse-mackerel ... he has caught authentic 
glimpses of the withdrawing mantle-hem of the 

Edda age. 

At Sea. 



[25] 



APRIL 

APRIL FIRST 

APRUL 'S come back; the swellin' buds of 
oak 
Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish smoke; 
The brooks are loose an', singing to be seen, 
(Like gals), make all the hollers soft an' green. 
The birds are here, for all the season 's late; 
They take the sun's height an' don' never wait; 
Soon 'z he officially declares it 's spring 
Their light hearts lift 'em on a north'ard wing. 
An' th' ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear, 
Can't by the music tell the time o' year. 

The Bigloiv Papers. 



APRIL SECOND 

Lord ! all thy works are lessons — each contains 
Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; 

Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains, 
Delving within thy grace, an eyeless mole ? 

The Oak. 



[27] 



APRIL THIRD 

The serf of his own Past is not a man; 
To change and change is hfe, to move and never 
rest; — 
Not what we are, but what we hope, is best. 

The Pioneer. 

APRIL FOURTH 

They who love are but one step from Heaven. 

Sonnets. 

APRIL FIFTH 

The thing we long for, that we are 

For one transcendent moment, 
Before the Present poor and bare 

Can make its sneering comment. 



Longing. 



APRIL SIXTH 



Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, 

Rain falls, suns rise and set, 

Earth whirls, and all but to prosper 

A poor little violet. 

The Changeling, 

APRIL SEVENTH Wordsworth- s Birthday. 

God wills, man hopes : in common souls 
Hope is but vague and undefined. 
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls 
A blessing to his kind. 

An Incident in a Railroad Car. 

[28] 



APRIL EIGHTH 

If it be impossible for a man to like every- 
thing, it is quite possible for him to avoid being 
driven mad by what does not please him; nay, 
it is the imperative duty of a wise man to find out 
what that secret is which makes a thing pleasing 

to another. 

A Fe-w Bits of Roman Mosaic. 

APRIL NINTH 

Children are God's apostles, day by day 

Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, and 

peace. 

On the Death of a Frienifs Child. 

APRIL TENTH 

I, country-born an' bred, know where to find 
Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind. 
An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's 

notes — 
Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, 
Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves, ef you oncurl. 
Each on 'em 's cradle to a baby pearl — 
But these are jes' Spring's pickets. 

The BigloiA) Papers. 

APRIL ELEVENTH 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; 
Everything is happy now. 

Everything is upward striving; 

[29] 



'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue — 
'T is the natural way of Hving. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

APRIL TWELFTH 

'T is good to be abroad in the sun, 
His gifts abide when the day is done; 
Each thing in nature from his cup 
Gathers a several virtue up. 

Out of Doors. 

APRIL THIRTEENTH 

Brain is always to be bought, but passion 
never comes to market. 

Italy. 

APRIL FOURTEENTH 

Wanting love, a man remains nailed to the 
dreadful cross of self without help or hope. 

The Old Dramatists. 

APRIL FIFTEENTH 

The soul is indifferent what garment she wears, 
or of what color or texture; the true king is not 
unkinged by being discrowned. 

The Old Dramatists. 

[30] 



APRIL SIXTEENTH 

Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, 
And luUest it upon thy heart. 

Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is v^^orth 
To teach men what thou art ! 

To the Memory of Hood. 

APRIL SEVENTEENTH 

The love of all things springs from love of one; 
Wider the soul's horizon hourly grows, 
And over it with fuller glory flows 
The sky-like spirit of God ; a hope begun 
In doubt and darkness 'neath a fairer sun 
Cometh to fruitage, if it be of Truth. 

Sonnets. 

APRIL EIGHTEENTH • 

God is not dumb, that he should speak no more; 
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is poor; 
There towers the mountain of the Voice no less, 
Which whoso seeks shall find. 

Bibliolatres. 

APRIL NINETEENTH Battle of Lexington and Cottcord. 

Ez fer war, I call it murder — 
There you hev it plain an' flat; 

1 don't want to go no furder 
Than my Testyment fer that; 

[31 ] 



God hez sed so plump an' fairly, 

It 's ez long ez it is broad, 
An' you 've gut to git up airly 

Ef you want to take in God. 

The Biglo^w Papers. 

APRIL TWENTIETH 

Literature is not shut up in books, nor art in 
galleries : both are taken in by unconscious ab- 
sorption in the atmosphere of society. 

In the Mediterranean. 



APRIL TWENTY-FIRST 

The love of the beautiful and true, like the 
dewdrop in the heart of the crystal, remains for- 
ever clear and liquid in the inmost shrine of 
man's being, though all the rest be turned to 
stone by sorrow^ and degradation. 

The Old Drajnatists. 

APRIL TWENTY-SECOND 

Plain words are best. Truth wants no veil; 
the chastity and beauty of her countenance are 
defence enough against all lewd eyes. False- 
hood, only, needs to hide her face. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

[32] 



APRIL TWENTY-THIRD 

Shakespeare' s Birthday. 

Shakespeare's characters seem to modify his 
plots as they are modified by them in turn. This 
may be the result of his unapproachable art; 
for art in him is but the tracing of nature to her 
primordial laws; is but nature precipitated, as 
it were, by the infallible test of philosophy. 

The Old Dramatists. 



APRIL TWENTY-FOURTH 

We can never say why we love, but only that we 

love. 

Connjersations on Some of the Old Poets. 



APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH 

We all are tall enough to reach God's hand. 

And angels are no taller. 

Ne^w Year s E've. 



APRIL TWENTY-SIXTH 

Away, unfruitful lore of books. 

For whose vain idiom we reject 

The spirit's mother-dialect, 

Aliens among the birds and brooks, 

Dull to interpret or believe 

What gospels lost the woods retrieve, 



Or what the eaves-dropping violet 

Reports from God, who walketh yet 

His garden in the hush of eve ! 

Out of Doors. 



APRIL TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Earth is no longer the fine work of art it was, 
for nothing is left to the imagination. 

At Sea. 



APRIL TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Each man has his private barometer of hope, 
the mercury in which is more or less sensitive, 
and the opinion vibrant with its rise or fall. 

A Moosehead "Journal. 



APRIL TWENTY-NINTH 

We are happy now because God wills it; 

The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
That dandelions are blossoming near. 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are 
flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky. 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

[34] 



APRIL THIRTIETH 

Beauty is Love, and what we love 

Straightway is beautiful, 

So is the circle round and full, 

And so dear Love doth live and move 

And have his being. 
Finding his proper food 

By sure inseeing. 

Bellerophon. 



[35] 



MAY 



MAY FIRST 

That comes with steady sun when April 



dies. 



MAY SECOND 



Sonnets. 



Each on his golden throne 
Full royally, alone, 
I see the stars above me, 
With sceptre and with diadem; 
Mildly they look down and love me, 
For I have ever yet loved them ; 
I see their ever-sleepless eyes 
Watching the growth of destinies. 



Bellerophon. 



MAY THIRD 

I know that God brings round 
His purposes in ways undreamed by us. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

[37] 



MAY FOURTH 

It is with true books as with Nature, each 
New day of living doth new insight teach. 

Sonnets. 

MAY FIFTH 

O woman's love ! O flower most bright and rare ! 
That blossom'st brightest in extremest need. 

Sonnets. 

MAY SIXTH 

little city-gals, don't never go it 
Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet ! 
They 're apt to pufF, an' May-day seldom looks 
Up in the country as it doos in books; 

They 're no more like than hornets'-nests an' 

hives. 
Or printed sermons be to holy lives. 

The Biglo^w Papers. 

MAY SEVENTH Browning's Birthday. 

But Poesy springs not from rocks and woods; 
Her womb and cradle are the human heart. 

V En'voi. 

MAY EIGHTH 

1 ollus feels the sap start in my veins 

In Spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains, 

[38] 



Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk 
Off by myself to hev a privit talk 
With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree 
Along o' me like most folks — Mister Me. 

The Biglo^w Papers. 

MAY NINTH 

For half our May 's so awfully like May n't, 
'T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; 
Though I own up I like our back'ard springs 
Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, 
An' when you 'most give up, 'ithout more words 
Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves an' birds. 

The Bigloix) Papers. 

MAY TENTH 

An' my experunce — tell ye what it 's ben : 
Folks thet worked thorough was the ones thet 

thriv, 
But bad work fellers ye ez long 's ye live; 
You can't git red on 't; jest ez sure ez sin, 
It 's oilers askin' to be done agin. 

The Biglo-iv Papers. 

MAY ELEVENTH 

'Fore long the trees begin to show belief, — 
The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, 

[39] 



Then safFern swarms swing off from all the 

willers 
So plump they look like yaller caterpillars. 

Thet 's robin-redbreast's almanick; he knows 
Thet arter this ther 's only blossom-snows; 
So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, 
He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. 

The Bigloiv Papers. 

MAY TWELFTH 

The very gnarliest and hardest of hearts has 
some musical strings in it. But they are tuned 
differently in every one of us, so that the self- 
same strain, which wakens a thrill of sympa- 
thetic melody in one, may leave another quite 

silent and untouched. 

Conuersatioiis on Some of the Old Poets. 

MAY THIRTEENTH 

Truth is eternal, but her effluence. 
With endless change is fitted to the hour; 
Her mirror is turned forward to reflect 
The promise of the future, not the past. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

MAY FOURTEENTH 

To make one object, in outward or inward 

nature, more holy to a single heart is reward 

enough for a life. 

The Old Dramatists. 

[40] 



MAY FIFTEENTH 

Meanwhile the devil-may-care, the bobolink. 
Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 

Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous 
brink, 
And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops. 

An Indian-summer Re'verie. 

MAY SIXTEENTH 

It is so delightful to meet a man who knows 
just what you do not. Talk of the sympathy of 
kindred pursuits ! It is the sympathy of the 
upper and nether millstones, both forever grind- 
ing the same grist, and wearing each other 

smooth. 

In the Mediterranean. 

MAY SEVENTEENTH 

God does not weigh criminality in our scales. 

We have one absolute standard, with the seal of 

authority upon it; and with us an ounce is an 

ounce and a pound is a pound. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

MAY EIGHTEENTH 

AH things that make us happy incline us also 

to be grateful, and I would rather enlarge than 

lessen the number of these. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

[41 ] 



MAY NINETEENTH 

Love never contracts its circles; they widen 

by as fixed and sure a law as those around a 

pebble cast into still water. 

The Old Dramatists. 

MAY TWENTIETH 

That love for one, from which there doth not 

spring 
Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. 

Sonnets. 

MAY TWENTY-FIRST 

There 's something in the apple-blossom, 
The greening grass and bobolink's song, 
That wakes again within my bosom 
Feelings which have slumbered long. 

The Bobolink. 

MAY TWENTY-SECOND 

All things below, all things above, 

Are open to the eyes of Love. 

Bellerophon. 

MAY TWENTY-THIRD 

Nothing in Nature weeps its lot, 
Nothing, save man, abides in memory, 

Forgetful that the Past is what 
Ourselves may choose the coming time to be. 

Sphinx. 

[42] 



MAY TWENTY-FOURTH 

If we could only carry that slow, imperturb- 
able old clock of Opportunity, that never strikes 
a second too soon or too late, in our fobs, and 
push the hands forward as we can those of our 
watches ! 

Cambridge Thirty 7'ears Ago. 

MAY TWENTY-FIFTH Emerson s Birthday. 

Poetry is something to make us wiser and 
better, by continually revealing those types of 
beauty and truth which God has set in all men's 
souls; not by picking out the petty faults of our 
neighbors to make a mock of. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

MAY TWENTY-SIXTH 

It is only in love that the soul finds weather 
as summerlike as that of the clime whence it 
has been transplanted, and can put forth its 
blossoms and ripen its fruit without fear of nip- 
ping frosts. 

The Old Dramatists. 

MAY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

The freemasonry of cultivated men is agree- 
able, but artificial, and I like better the natural 
grip with which manhood recognizes manhood. 

In the Mediterranean. 

[43] 



MAY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

When I meditate upon the pains taken for our 
entertainment in this life, on the endless variety 
of seasons, of human character and fortune . . . 
I sometimes feel a singular joy in looking upon 
myself as God's guest, and cannot but believe 
that v^e should all be wiser and happier, because 
more grateful, if we were always mindful of our 
privilege in this regard. 

The Biglouo Papers. 



MAY TWENTY-NINTH 

What a man pays for bread and butter is 
worth its market value, and no more. What he 
pays for love's sake is gold indeed, which has a 
lure for angels' eyes, and rings well upon God's 
touchstone. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 



MAY THIRTIETH Memorial Day. 

Earth with her twining memories ivies o'er 

Their holy sepulchres; . . . 

All other glories are as falling stars. 

But universal Nature watches theirs : 

Such strength is won by love of human kind. 

Prometheus. 



[44] 



MAY THIRTY-FIRST 

Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness, 
Where force were vain, makes conquest o'er 
the wave; 
And love lives on and hath a power to bless, 
When they who loved are hidden in the grave. 
Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing. 



[45] 



JUNE 



JUNE FIRST 

I HEN comes a hitch, — things lag behind, 
Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up 
her mind. 
An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams 
Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, 
A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft. 
Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, 
Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, 
Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, 
Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune 
An' gives one leap from April into June. 

'The Biglonx: Papers. 

JUNE SECOND 

June's bridesman, poet o' the year, 
Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; 
Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, 
Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings. 
Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair. 
Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. 

The Biglonv Papers. 

[47] 



JUNE THIRD 

Of Knowledge Love is master-key, 
Knowledge of Beauty; passing dear 
Is each to each, and mutually 
Each one doth make the other clear. 

Bellerophon. 

JUNE FOURTH 

Upward the soul forever turns her eyes; 

The next hour always shames the hour before; 

One beauty, at its highest, prophesies 

That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor; 

No God-like thing knows aught of less and less, 

But widens to the boundless perfectness. 

Sonnets. 

JUNE FIFTH 

It is of less consequence where a man buys his 
tools than what use he makes of them. 

Cambridge Thirty Years Ago. 

JUNE SIXTH 

Nothing short of full daylight can give the 
supremest sense of solitude. Darkness will not 
do so, for the imagination peoples it with more 
shapes than ever were poured from the frozen 
loins of the populous North. 

At Sea. 

[48] 



JUNE SEVENTH 

There never yet was flower fair in vain, 

Let classic poets rhyme it as they will; 

The seasons toil that it may blow again, 

And summer's heart doth feel its every ill; 

Nor is a true soul ever born for naught; 

Wherever any such hath lived and died, 

There hath been something for true freedom 

wrought, 
Some bulwark levelled on the evil side. 

Sonnets. 

JUNE EIGHTH 

Outward nature is but one of the soul's re- 
tainers, and dons a festal or a mourning garment 
according as its master does. There is nothing 
sad or joyful in nature, of itself 

The Old Dramatists. 

JUNE NINTH 

Go, look on Nature's countenance. 
Drink in the blessing of her glance; 
Look on the sunset, hear the wind. 
The cataract, the awful thunder; 
Go, worship by the sea ; 
Then, and then only, shall ye find. 
With ever-growing wonder, 
Man is not all in all to ye. 



The Bobolink. 



[ 49 



JUNE TENTH 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking: 

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'T is only God may be had for the asking, 
No price is set on the lavish summer; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal, 

JUNE ELEVENTH 

Love is the most hospitable of spirits, and 
adorns the interior of his home for the nobler 
welcome, not the exterior for the more lordly 
show. . . . No matter into what hovel of clay he 
enters, that is straightway the palace, and beauty 

holds her court in vain. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JUNE TWELFTH 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers. 
And, groping blindly above it for light. 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 
[ 50 ] 



JUNE THIRTEENTH 

Now is the high-tide of the year; . . . 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green. 

'The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

JUNE FOURTEENTH 

Youth's dreams are but the flutterings 
Of those strong wings whereon the soul shall 

soar 
In aftertime to win a starry throne. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

JUNE FIFTEENTH 

I know nothing more full of delight and en- 
couragement than to trace the influence of one 
great and true spirit upon another. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JUNE SIXTEENTH 

It is not the mere absence of man, but the 

sense of his departure, that makes a profound 

loneliness. 

A Fenv Bits of Roman Mosaic. 

JUNE SEVENTEENTH 

One has not far to seek for book-nature, 

artist-nature, every variety of superinduced 

nature, in short, but genuine human nature is 

hard to find. 

/;/ the Mediterranean. 

[51] 



JUNE EIGHTEENTH 

An unhappy man, if he go into a wood, shall 
hear nothing but sad sounds there; the tinkle 
of the brook, the low ocean-murmur of the 
cloudy pines, the soft clatter of the leaves, shall 
all sound funereal to him; he shall see only the 
dead limbs upon the trees, and only the inhos- 
pitable corners of the rocks, too churlish even 
for the hardy lichen to pitch his tents upon. 

The Old Dramatists. 



JUNE NINETEENTH 

Seeing a waterfall or a forest for the first time, 
I have a feeling of something gone, a vague 
regret that in some former state, I have drank 
up the wine of their beauty, and left to the de- 
frauded present only the muddy lees. 

CoTi'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JUNE TWENTIETH 

Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes, 
Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense; 
He knows that outward seemings are but lies, 
Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence 
The soul that looks within for truth may guess 
The presence of some wondrous heavenliness. 

U En'voi. 



[52] 



JUNE TWENTY-FIRST 

We may be but the chance acquaintance of 
him who has made us the sharer of his joy, 
but he who has admitted us to the sanctuary 
of his grief has made us also partakers of the 

dignity of friendship. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JUNE TWENTY-SECOND 

Whatever can be known of earth we know, 
Sheered Europe's wise men, in their snail- 
shells curled; 
No! said one man in Genoa, and that No 
Out of the dark created this New World. 

To W. L. Garrison. 

JUNE TWENTY-THIRD 

Love's nobility is shown in this, that it 
strengthens us to make sacrifices for others, and 
not for the object of our love alone. 

The Old Dramatists. 

JUNE TWENTY-FOURTH 

The moon looks down and ocean worships her. 

Stars rise and set, and seasons come and go. 

Even as they did in Homer's elder time 

But we behold them not with Grecian eyes : 

Then they were types of beauty and of strength, 

But now of freedom, unconfined and pure, 

Subject alone to Order's higher law. 

V Envoi. 

[53] 



JUNE TWENTY-FIFTH 

It is curious to consider from what infinitely 
varied points of view we might form our esti- 
mate of a great man's character, when we re- 
member that he had his points of contact with 
the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick- 
maker, as well as with the ingenious A, the 
sublime B, and the right honorable C. 

Ca7/ibriJge Thirty Tears Ago. 

JUNE TWENTY-SIXTH 

Through the broad Earth roams Opportunity 
And knocks at every door of hut or hall, 
Until she finds the brave soul that she wants. 

Hakon s Lay. 

JUNE TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Dear Patience, too, is born of woe, 

Patience that opes the gate 
Wherethrough the soul of man must go 

Up to each nobler state. 

Whose voice's flow so meek and low 

Smooths the bent brows of Fate. 

In Sadness. 

JUNE TWENTY-EIGHTH 

In truth, what we call greatness and nobleness 
is but entire health ; to those only who are de- 
naturalized themselves does it seem wonderful; 

[54] 



to the natural man they are as customary and 
unconscious as the beating of his heart, or the 
motion of his lungs, and as necessary. 

The Old Dramatists. 

JUNE TWENTY-NINTH 

The sacred human heart 

Whereon Love's candles burn unquenchably. 

Trimmed day and night by gentle-handed Peace. 

iVifii; Year s E-ue. 

JUNE THIRTIETH 

Nature, thy soul was one with mine, 
A.nd, as a sister by a younger brother 
Is loved, each flowing to the other, 

Such love for me was thine. 

The Bobolink. 



[55] 



JULY 



JULY FIRST 

^"T^HERE is more force in names 

Than most men dream of; and a lie may 
keep 
Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk 
Behind the shield of some fair-seeming name. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 



JULY SECOND 

It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as 
vital to religion. The Bread of Life is whole- 
some and sufficing in itself, but gulped down by 
these kickshaws cooked up by theologians, it is 
apt to produce an indigestion, nay, even at last 
an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism. 

The Eiglo-zv Papers. 

JULY THIRD 

There is no bore we dread being left alone 
with so much as our own minds. 

A Moosehead Journal. 



JULY FOURTH Independence Day. 

Slow are the steps of Freedom, but her feet 
Turn never backward: hers no bloody glare; 

Her light is calm, and innocent, and sweet, 
And where it enters there is no despair. 

Ode to France, 

JULY FIFTH 

It ain't disgraceful bein' beat, when a holl 

nation doos it, 

But Chance is like an amberill — it don't take 

twice to lose it. 

The Bigloiv Papers. 

JULY SIXTH 

God's measure is the heart of the offender, 
— a balance which varies with every one of 
us, a balance so delicate that a tear cast in the 
other side may make the weight of error kick 
the beam. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

JULY SEVENTH 

Taste is that faculty which at once perceives, 

and hails as true, ideas which yet it has not the 

gift of discovering itself. It is not something to 

be educated and fostered, but is as truly innate 

as the creative faculty itself 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

[58] 



JULY EIGHTH 

There are three short and simple words, the 
hardest to pronounce in any language (and I 
suspect they were no easier before the confusion 
of tongues), but which no man or nation that 
cannot utter can claim to have arrived at man- 
hood. Those words are, / was %urong. 

The Biglo'xv Papers. 

JULY NINTH 

The lore 
Which she had learned of nature and the woods, 
That beauty's chief reward is to itself, 
And that the eyes of love reflect alone 
The inward fairness, which is blurred and lost 
Unless kept clear and white by Duty's care. 

A Chipfenva Legend. 

JULY TENTH 

The intellect can never be great, save in 
pupilage to the heart. Nay, it can never be 
truly strong but so. 

The Old Dramatists. 

JULY ELEVENTH 

The wise man travels to discover himself; it 
is to find himself out that he goes out of his 
habitual associations, trying everything in turn 

[59] 



till he find that one activity, that royal stand- 
ard, sovran over him by divine right, toward 
which all the disbanded powers of his nature 
and the irregular tendencies of his life gather 
joyfully. 

Cambridge Thirty Tears Ago. 



JULY TWELFTH 

To the soul which is truly king of itself, and 
not a prisoner in its desolate palace, the senses 
are but keepers of its treasury, and all beautiful 
things pay their tribute through these, and not 
to them. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 



JULY THIRTEENTH 

God's and Heaven's great deeps are nearer 
Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh. 

Ode. 



JULY FOURTEENTH 

All of us probably have brushed against des- 
tiny in the street, have shaken hands with it, 
fallen asleep with it in railway carriages, and 
knocked heads with it in some way or other of 
its yet unrecognized incarnations. 

Cambridge Thirty Tears Ago. 

[60] 



JULY FIFTEENTH 

If our own experience is of so little use to us, 
what a dolt is he who recommends to man or 
nation the experience of others. 

A Mooschead 'Journal. 

JULY SIXTEENTH 

Good were the days of yore, when men were tried 
By ring of shields, as now by ring of gold; 
But, while the gods are left, and hearts of men, 
And the free ocean, still the days are good. 

Hakon s Lay. 

JULY SEVENTEENTH 

Whate'er of ancient song remains 
Has fresh air flowing in its veins. 
For Greece and eldest Ind knew well 
That out of doors, with world-wide swell, 
Arches the student's lawful cell. 

Out of Doors, 

JULY EIGHTEENTH rhackerafs Birthday. 

The simplest thoughts, feelings and experi- 
ences that lie upon the very surface of life are 
overlooked by all but uncommon eyes. Most 
look upon them as mere weeds. Yet a weed, to 
him that loves it, is a flower. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

[6i ] 



JULY NINETEENTH 

The silent heart of God, 
Silent, yet pulsing forth exhaustless life 
Through the least veins of all created things. 

Ne^w Tear s Enje. 

JULY TWENTIETH 

Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems, 
Having tw^o faces, as some images 
Are carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill; 
But one heart lies beneath, and that is good. 
As are all hearts, w^hen \vt explore their depths, 

Prometheus. 

JULY TWENTY-FIRST 

Ther 's times w^hen I 'm onsocial ez a stone, 
An' sort o' suffocate to be alone — 
I 'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh. 
An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky. 

The BigloHJu Papers. 

JULY TWENTY-SECOND 

No mortle man can boast of perfic' vision. 
But the one moleblin' thing is Indecision, 
An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor state 
Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great. 

The BigloTu Papers. 

[62] 



JULY TWENTY-THIRD 

How our own erring will it is that hangs 
The flaming sword o'er Eden's unclosed gate, 
Which gives free entrance to the pure in heart, 
And with its guarding walls doth fence the meek. 

Ncvo Tear s E-ve. 

JULY TWENTY-FOURTH 

Was not the golden sunset a dear friend ? 

Found I no kindness in the silent moon. 

And the green trees, whose tops did sway and 

bend. 
Low singing evermore their pleasant tune ? 

The Bobolink. 

JULY TWENTY-FIFTH 

Knowledge doth only widen love; 

The stream, that lone and narrow rose, 

Doth, deepening ever, onward move. 

And with an even current flows 

Calmer and calmer to the close. 

Lo've' 5 Altar. 

JULY TWENTY-SIXTH 

The rapidity with which the human mind 
levels itself to the standard around it gives us 
the most pertinent warning as to the company 
we keep. 

A Moosehcad "Journal. 

[63] 



JULY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Pines, ef you 're blue, are the best friends I know, 
They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelin's so — 
They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, 
You half forgit you 've got a body on. 

The Bigloiv Papers. 

JULY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

The forest primeval is best seen from the top 
of a mountain. It then impresses one by its ex- 
tent, like an Oriental epic. To be in it is nothing, 
for then an acre is as good as a thousand square 

miles, 

A Moosehead Journal. 

JULY TWENTY-NINTH 

Life, the one block 
Of marble that 's vouchsafed wherefrom to 

carve 
Our great thoughts, white and godlike, to shine 

down 

The future, Life, the irredeemable block, 

Which one o'er-hasty chisel-dint oft mars, 

Scanting our room to cut the features out 

Of our full hope, so forcing us to crown 

With a mean head the perfect limbs, or leave 

The god's face glowing o'er a satyr's trunk. 

Failure's brief epitaph. 

Columbus. 

[64] 



JULY THIRTIETH 

Men think it is an awful sight 

To see a soul just set adrift 
On that drear voyage from whose night 

The ominous shadows never lift; 
But 't is more awful to behold 

A helpless infant, newly born, 
Whose little hands unconscious hold 

The keys of darkness and of morn. 

Extreme Unction. 

JULY THIRTY-FIRST 

Many great souls have gone to rest, and sleep 

Under this armor, free and full of peace : 

If these have left the earth, yet Truth remains, 

Endurance, too, the crowning faculty 

Of noble minds, and Love, invincible 

By any weapons. 

Neiv Tear" s Eve. 



[65] 



AUGUST 



AUGUST FIRST 

/^NE seed contains another seed, 

^■^^ And that a third, and so for evermore; 

And promise of as great a deed 
Lies folded in the deed that went before. 

Sphinx. 

AUGUST SECOND 

There is not in this life of ours 

One bliss unmixed with fears, 
The hope that wakes our deepest powers 

A face of sadness wears, 

And the dew that showers our dearest flowers 

Is the bitter dew of tears. 

In Sadness. 



AUGUST THIRD 

Thinkin' o' nothin', I 've heerd ole folks say, 
Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way: 
It 's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew, 
Or ever hearn, to make your feelin's blue. 

The Biglo-TV Papers. 

[67] 



AUGUST FOURTH Shelley s Birthday, 

High natures must be thunder-scarred 

With many a searing wrong; 
From mother Sorrow's breasts the bard 

Sucks gifts of deepest song, 
Nor all unmarred with struggles hard 

Wax the Soul's sinews strong. 

In Sadness. 

AUGUST FIFTH 

Folks thet 's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; 
God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe 
He '11 settle things they run away an' leave ! 

The Biglonv Papers. 

AUGUST SIXTH Tennyson's Birthday. 

Once hardly in a cycle blossometh 
A flower-like soul ripe with the seeds of song, 
A spirit fore-ordained to cope with wrong. 
Whose divine thoughts are natural as breath. 

Sonnets. 

AUGUST SEVENTH 

People are apt to confound mere alertness of 
mind with attention. . . . Attention is the stuff 
that memory is made of, and memory is accumu- 
lated genius. 

The Biglo^iv Papers. 

[68] 



AUGUST EIGHTH 

What frame in what gallery ever enclosed such 
a picture as is squared within the groundsel, side- 
posts and lintel of a barn-door, whether for eye 
or fancy ? 

Italy. 

AUGUST NINTH 

This world is awful contrary : the rope may 

stretch your neck 
Thet mebby kep' another chap frum washin' off 

a wreck. . . . 
But groutin' ain't no kin' o' use; an' ef the fust 

throw fails, 
Why, up an' try agin, thet 's all — the coppers 

ain't all tails. 

^he Biglo^iv Papers. 

AUGUST TENTH 

We stupidly call the life of savages a state of 
nature, as if Nature loved our bestial qualities 
better than our divine ones. The condition of 
the poet may be more truly named so, in whom 
the highest refinement of civilization consists 
with the utmost simplicity of the unblunted 
spiritual instincts. 

/ Con-'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

[69] 



AUGUST ELEVENTH 

It is true that every man has his infalHble and 
inexorable monitor within — a conscience that 
forewarns, as well as one that reproves; and it 
were hard to tell which yields the sharper lash. 
Nature throws the tools of whatever art she 
destines a select soul for invitingly in his way. 

The Old Dramatists. 

AUGUST TWELFTH 

You smile, but let me think it is for sympathy. 

A sneer is the weapon of the weak. 

Con-ziersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

AUGUST THIRTEENTH 

Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, 

but then 

Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made 

us men. 

On the Capture of Certain Fugitive 
Sla-ves near IVashlngton. 

AUGUST FOURTEENTH 

True Love is but a humble, low-born thing, 
And hath its food served up in earthen ware; 
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, 
Through the everydayness of this work-day 

world. 
Baring its tender feet to every roughness, 
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray 
From Beauty's law of plainness and content. 

Lo^e. 

[70] 



AUGUST FIFTEENTH 

Still, through our paltry stir and strife, 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing moulds in clay what Life 

Carves in the marble Real; 
To let the new life in, we know, 

Desire must ope the portal; 
Perhaps the longing to be so 

Helps make the soul immortal. 



Longing. 



AUGUST SIXTEENTH 

Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 
In other men, sleeping, but never dead. 
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own : 
Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes. 
Then will pure light around thy path be shed, 
And thou wilt never more be sad and lone. 

Sonnets. 

AUGUST SEVENTEENTH 

Over our manhood bend the skies; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies; 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

[71 ] 



AUGUST EIGHTEENTH 

That is no true alms which the hand can hold; 
He gives nothing but worthless gold 
Who gives from a sense of duty. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

AUGUST NINETEENTH 

No man thinks his own nature miraculous, 
while to his neighbor it may give a surfeit of 
wonder. Let him go where he will, he can find 
no heart so worth a study as his own. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

AUGUST TWENTIETH 

Surely, God did not give us these fine senses as 
so many posterns to the heart for the Devil to 
enter at. I believe that he has endowed us with 
no faculty but for his own glory. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

AUGUST TWENTY-FIRST 

Morals can never be safely embodied in 
the constable. Polished, cultivated, fascinat- 
ing Mephistopheles ! it is for the ungovernable 
breaking away of the soul from unnatural com- 
pressions that thou waitest with a deprecatory 
smile. 

Cambridge Thirty Tears Ago. 

[72] 



AUGUST TWENTY-SECOND 

God bless the Present! it is all; 

It has been Future, and it shall be Past; 

Awake and live ! thy strength recall, 

And in one trinity unite them fast. 

Sphinx. 

AUGUST TWENTY-THIRD 

All the groaning clank 
Of this mad engine men have made of earth 
Dulls not some ears for catching purer tones. 
That wander from the dim surrounding vast. 
Or far more clear melodious prophecies, 
The natural music of the heart of man. 

Nenv Tear s E've. 

AUGUST TWENTY-FOURTH 

Open all thy soul and sense 
To every blessed influence 

That from the heart of Nature springs. 

Floavers. 

AUGUST TWENTY-FIFTH 

To be a sensualist in a certain kind and to a 
certain degree is the mark of a pure and youth- 
ful nature. To be able to keep a just balance 
between sense and spirit, and to have the soul 
welcome frankly all the delicious impulses which 
flow to it from without, is a good and holy thing. 
CoTfversaiions on Some of the Old Poets. 

in] 



AUGUST TWENTY-SIXTH 

Selfishness always builds a thick roof over- 
head, to cut off the heavenward gaze of the 
spirit. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

AUGUST TWENTY-SEVENTH 

God will make the lily stalk, 
In the soft grasp of naked gentleness. 
Stronger than iron spear to shatter through 
The sevenfold toughness of Wrong's idle shield. 

A'ifov Year s E've. 

AUGUST TWENTY-EIGHTH Goethe's Birthday. 

And who hath trod Olympus, from his eye 
Fades not that broader outlook of the gods; 
His life's low valleys overbrow earth's clouds. 

Columbus. 

AUGUST TWENTY-NINTH 
O. W. Holmes's Birthday. 

There 's Holmes, who is matchless among you 

for wit; 
A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which 

flit 
The electrical tingles of hit after hit. 

A Fable for Critics. 

[74] 



AUGUST THIRTIETH 

Seeing a goat the other day kneehng in order 
to graze with less trouble, it seemed to me a type 
of the common notion of prayer. Most people 
are ready enough to go down on their knees for 
material blessings, but how few for those 
spiritual gifts which alone are an answer to 
our orisons, if we but knew it ! 

The Bigloiv Papers. 

AUGUST THIRTY-FIRST 

There is nothing that does not harmonize 
with and illustrate what we have most at heart, 
and one key will open all the doors of nature. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 



[75] 



SEPTEMBER 



SEPTEMBER FIRST 

"1 X T'ISDOM is meek sorrow's patient child, 

' ^ And empire over self, and all the deep 
Strong charities that make men seem like gods; 
And love, that makes them be gods, from her 

breasts 
Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood. 

Prometheus. 

SEPTEMBER SECOND 

We 're curus critters : Now ain't jes' the minute 
Thet ever fits us easy while we 're in it; 
Long ez 't was futur', 't would be perfect bliss — 
Soon ez it 's past, thet time 's worth ten o' this; 
An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told 
Thet Now 's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. 

The Biglo'w Papers, 

SEPTEMBER THIRD 

But now I 'm gittin' on in life, I find 
It 's a sight harder to make up my mind; 
Nor I don't often try tu, when events 
Will du it for me free of all expense, 



The moral question 's oUus plain enough — 
It 's jes' the human-natur' side thet 's tough; 
Wut 's best to think may n't puzzle me nor you — 
The pinch comes in decidin' wut to du. 

The Biglo'w Papers. 

SEPTEMBER FOURTH 

What men call luck 
Is the prerogative of valiant souls, 
The fealty life pays its rightful kings. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 



SEPTEMBER FIFTH 

There is something more than mere earth in 
the spot v^^here great deeds have been done. The 
surveyor cannot give the true dimensions of 
Marathon or Lexington, for they are not redu- 
cible to square acres. 

A Fenjo Bits of Roman Mosaic. 



SEPTEMBER SIXTH 

Antiquity has alw^ays something reverend in 
it. Even its most material and perishable form, 
which we see in pyramids, cairns and the like, 
is brooded over by a mysterious presence which 
strangely awes us. Whatever has been hallowed 
by the love and pity, by the smiles and tears of 

[78] 



men, becomes something more to us than the 
moss-covered epitaphs of a buried age. 

Coniiersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

SEPTEMBER SEVENTH 

All great ideas come to us at first, like the 

gods of Homer, enveloped in a blinding mist; 

but to him whom their descent to earth concerns, 

to him who stands most in need of their help, 

the cloud becomes luminous and fragrant, and 

betrays the divinity behind it. 

Con-versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

SEPTEMBER EIGHTH 

He 's true to God who 's true to man; wherever 

wrong is done, 
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the 

all-beholding sun. 
That wrong is also done to us; and they are 

slaves most base, 
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not 

for all their race. 

On the Capture of Certain Fugiti'ue 
Slaves near Washington. 

SEPTEMBER NINTH 

As soon as a thing is past, it is as infinitely 
far away from us as if it had happened millions 
of years ago. 

Cambridge Thirty Tears Ago. 

[ 79 ] 



SEPTEMBER TENTH 

Action and Life — lo ! here the key 
Of all on earth that seemeth dark and wrong; 

Win this — and, with it, freely ye 
May enter that bright realm for which ye long. 

Sphinx. 

SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH 

The hand of God sows not in vain; 
Long sleeps the darkling seed below, 
The seasons come, and change, and go, 
And all the fields are deep with grain. 

On the Death of Dr. Channing. 

SEPTEMBER TWELFTH 

I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is so sure 
Ez thet principle kind o' gits spiled by exposure; 
A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't 
Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite 

on 't; 
Ef he can't keep it all to himself wen it 's wise to, 
He ain't one it 's fit to trust nothin' so nice to. 

'The Biglonx} Papers. 

SEPTEMBER THIRTEENTH 

Are not our educations commonly like a pile 

of books laid over a plant in a pot .? The 

compressed nature struggles through at every 

crevice, but can never get the cramp and stunt 

out of it. 

A Moosehead Journal. 

[80] 



SEPTEMBER FOURTEENTH 

To the spirit elect there is no choice; 
He cannot say, This will I do, or that; . . . 
A hand is stretched to him from out the dark, 
Which grasping without question, he is led 
Where there is work that he must do for God. 

Columbus. 

SEPTEMBER FIFTEENTH 

Heaven is not mounted to on wings of dreams . . . 
'T is sorrow builds the ladder up, 
Whose golden rounds are our calamities, 
Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer God 
The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unsealed. 

On the Death of a Friend's Child. 

SEPTEMBER SIXTEENTH 

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will 
With our poor earthward striving; 

We quench it that we may be still 
Content with merely living. 

Longing. 

SEPTEMBER SEVENTEENTH 

Nex' thing to knowin' you 're well off is nuf 
to know when y' ain't. 

The Biglonv Papers. 

[8i] 



SEPTEMBER EIGHTEENTH 

The man of talents possesses them like so 

many tools, does his job with them, and there an 

end; but the man of genius is possessed by it, 

and it makes him into a book or a life according 

to its whim. 

Cambridge Thirty Tears Ago. 

SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH 

Great Truths are portions of the soul of man; 

Great souls are portions of Eternity; 

Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart 

ran 

With lofty message, ran for thee and me. 

Sonnets. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTIETH 

We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought 
Rather to name our high successes so. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 

It is a bad sign when a man is skilled in 

apologies. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 

Credit should be given rather to the concen- 
trated resolution than to the creed or theory. 
Resolution is the youngest and dearest daughter 
[82] 



of Destiny, and may win from her fond mother 
almost any favor she chooses to ask, though in 
very wantonness. 

The Old Dramatists. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 

After all, the great secret is, to learn how little 
the world is while we are yet living in it. 

The Old Dramatists. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 

Not only around our infancy 
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie : 
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
We Sinais climb and know it not. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 

Life is the jailer. Death the angel sent 

To draw the unwilling bolts and set us free. 

On the Death of a Friend'' s Child. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 

Arter all, Time's dial plate 
Marks cen'tries with the minute-finger, 
An' Good can't never come tu late, 
Though it doos seem to try an' linger. 

The Biglo%v Papers. 

[83] 



SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 

The senses can do nothing unless the soul be 
an accomplice, and in whatever the soul does, 

the body will have a voice. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

There seem nowadays to be two sources of 
literary inspiration, fulness of mind and empti- 
ness of pocket. 

The Biglo'U) Papers. 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 

How great it is to breathe with human breath, 
To be but poor foot-soldiers in the ranks 
Of our old exiled king, Humanity; 
Encamping after every hard-won field 
Nearer and nearer Heaven's happy plains. 

Nenju Year" s Eve. 

SEPTEMBER THIRTIETH 

Whatever a man's inward calling is, that will 

have undivided possession of him, or no share 

at all in him. 

The Old Dramatists. 



[84] 



OCTOBER 



OCTOBER FIRST 

\ X /E spend all our youth in building a vessel 
for our voyage of life, and set forth w^ith 
streamers flying; but the moment we come near 
the great lodestone of our proper destiny, out 
leap all our carefully driven bolts and nails, and 
we get many a mouthful of good salt brine, and 
many a bufl^et of the rough water of experience, 
before we secure the bare right to live. 

A Moosehead Journal. 

OCTOBER SECOND 

I might turn back to other destinies, 
For one sincere key opes all Fortune's doors; 
But whoso answers not God's earliest call. 
Forfeits or dulls that faculty supreme 
Of lying open to his genius 
Which makes the wise heart certain of its ends. 

Columbus. 

OCTOBER THIRD 

Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to 

the heart. 

V Ennjoi. 

[85] 



OCTOBER FOURTH 

We do not agree, nor should we be pleasant 
companions if we did. This would be a dull 
world indeed, if all our opinions must bevel to 
one standard; when all our hearts do, we shall 
see blue sky, and not sooner. 

The Old Dramatists. 

OCTOBER FIFTH 

Beautiful as fire is in itself, I suspect that part 
of the pleasure is metaphysical, and that the 
sense of playing with an element which can be 
so terrible adds to the zest of the spectacle. 

A Fe^w Bits of Roman Mosaic. 

OCTOBER SIXTH 

A base mind always takes that for cant in 
another which would be such in itself, and is 
apt to blame any innocent assertion of peculiar- 
ity for assumption. 

Cowersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

OCTOBER SEVENTH 

The world always judges a man (and rightly 
enough, too) by his little faults, which he shows 
a hundred times a day, rather than by his great 
virtues, which he discloses perhaps once in a 
lifetime. 

Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, 

[86] 



OCTOBER EIGHTH 

Beauty and Truth, and all that these contain, 
Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet; 
We climb to them through years of sweat and 

pain; 
Without long struggle, none did e'er attain 
The downward look from Quiet's blissful seat. 

To John G. Palfrey. 



OCTOBER NINTH 

Autumn is often called a melancholy season; 
I cannot find it so, though I have often known 
the summer landscape to seem barer and bleaker 
than the long gray beach at Nantasket. No; 
there hangs the wondrous lyre within our reach, 
its dumb chords bearing the unborn music in 
their womb, which our touch delivers — a love- 
ditty or a dirge. 

The Old Dramatists. 



OCTOBER TENTH 

True Love, which steals into the heart 
With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn 
That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, 
And hath its will through blissful gentleness. 

Lo've. 



[87] 



OCTOBER ELEVENTH 

I can't make out but jest one ginnle rule — 
No man need go an' make himself a fool, 
Nor jedgment ain't like mutton, thet can't bear 
Cookin' tu long, nor be took up tu rare. 

The Bigloav Papers. 

OCTOBER TWELFTH 

In creating, the only hard thing's to begin; 

A grass-blade 's no easier to make than an oak. 

If you 've once found the way, you 've achieved 

the grand stroke. 

A Fable for Critics. 

OCTOBER THIRTEENTH 

Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and 

gives us nothing in return. It is well to distrust 

what we hear to make us think worse of a man, 

and to accept a story's pleasantness as prima 

facie evidence of its truth. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

OCTOBER FOURTEENTH 

It is singular how impatient men are with 
overpraise of others, how patient with over- 
praise of themselves; and yet the one does them 
no injury, while the other may be their ruin. 

The Bigloiv Papers, 

[88] 



OCTOBER FIFTEENTH 

Patience, when it is a divine thing, is active, 

not passive. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 

OCTOBER SIXTEENTH 

It has often set me thinking v^hen I find that 
I can always pick up plenty of nuts under my 
shagbark tree. The squirrels know them by 
their lightness, and I have seldom seen one with 
the marks of their teeth in it. What a school- 
house is the world, if our wits would only not 

play truant ! 

The Bigloiv Papers. 

OCTOBER SEVENTEENTH 

Through the clouded glass 

Of our own bitter tears, we learn to look 

Undazzled on the kindness of God's face; 

Earth is too dark, and Heaven alone shines 

through. 

On the Death of a Friend' s Child. 

OCTOBER EIGHTEENTH 

The sincere thought which the meanest pebble 
gives to a human soul is of great price to us. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

OCTOBER NINETEENTH 

To try to be independent is to acknowledge our 

slavery. 

The Old Dramatists. 

[89] 



OCTOBER TWENTIETH 

I am often struck, especially in reading Mon- 
taigne, with the obviousness and famiharity of a 
great writer's thoughts, and the freshness they 
gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix 
their greatness with all they say and give it our 

best attention. 

The Bigloix) Papers. 

OCTOBER TWENTY-FIRST 

Our love for one is only made preeminent that 

it may show us the beauty and holiness of that 

love whose arms are wide enough for all. It is 

easy enough to die for one we love so fiercely; 

but it is a harder and nobler martyrdom to live 

for others. 

The Old Dramatists. 

OCTOBER TWENTY-SECOND 

We, too, have autumns, when our leaves 
Drop loosely through the dampened air, 

When all our good seems bound in sheaves, 
And we stand reaped and bare. . . . 

O thou, whose days are yet all spring. 

Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving; 

Experience is a dumb, dead thing; 

The victory 's in believing. 

To . 

[90] 



OCTOBER TWENTY-THIRD 

And often, from that other world, on this 

Some gleams from great souls gone before may 
shine, 
To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, 
And clothe the Right with lustre more divine. 
Elegy on the Death of Dr. Charming. 

OCTOBER TWENTY-FOURTH 

He that loves the creature has made ready a 

shrine for the Creator in his heart. 

Con'uersatioHs on Some of the Old Poets. 

OCTOBER TWENTY-FIFTH 

The great intellect dies with its possessor; the 
great heart, though his name in whose breast it 
' had its ebb and flow be buried in the mouldered 
past, survives forever, beckoning kindred na- 
tures to deeds of heroic trust and self-sacrifice. 

The Old Dramatists. 

OCTOBER TWENTY-SIXTH 

How much dignity does the love of nature give 

to minds otherwise trivial ! 

Con<versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

OCTOBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Mere size is hardly an element of grandeur, 
except in works of man — as the Colosseum. It 
is through one or the other pole of vanity that 

[91] 



men feel the sublime in mountains. It is either, 
How small great I am beside it ! or, Big as you 
are, little I's soul will hold a dozen of you. 

A MoQsehead Journal. 



OCTOBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Practical application is the only mordant which 

will set things in the memory. . . . One learns 

more metaphysics from a single temptation than 

from all the philosophers. 

A Moosehead "Journal. 



OCTOBER TWENTY-NINTH Keats' s Birthday. 

It will be centuries before another nature so 
spontaneously noble and majestic as that of 
Keats and so tender and merciful too, is 

embodied. 

Con'versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

OCTOBER THIRTIETH 

Few sounds there were : the dropping of a nut. 

The squirrel's chirrup, and the jay's harsh 

scream. 

Autumn's sad remnants of blithe Summer's 

cheer. 

A Chippe^wa Legend. 



[92] 



OCTOBER THIRTY-FIRST 

Ah, if we would but pledge ourselves to truth 
as heartily as we do to a real or imaginary mis- 
tress, and think life too short only because it 
abridged our time of service, what a new world 
we should have ! 

Con<versations on Some of the Old Poets. 



[93] 



NOVEMBER 



NOVEMBER FIRST All Saints' Day. 

Vy^HENSOEVER 
' ^ With great thoughts worthy of their high 
behests 
Our souls are filled, those bright ones with us be, 
As, in the patriarch's tent, his angel guests; — 
O let us live so worthily, that never 
We may be far from that blest company. 

Sonnets. 



NOVEMBER SECOND All Souls' Day. 

True is it that Death's face seems stern and 

cold, 
When he is sent to summon those we love. 
But all God's angels come to us disguised; 
Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, 
One after other lift their frowning masks. 
And we behold the seraph's face beneath, 
All radiant with the glory and the calm 
Of having looked upon the front of God. 

On the Death of a Friend's Child. 



[95] 



NOVEMBER THIRD 

All true, whole men succeed : for what is worth 
Success's name, unless it be the thought, 
The inward surety to have carried out 
A noble purpose to a noble end ? 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

NOVEMBER FOURTH 

Comes the Indian-summer bloom 
That hazes round the basking plum, 
And, from the same impartial light, 
The grass sucks green, the lily white. 

Out of Doors. 

NOVEMBER FIFTH 

A ray of light seems simple enough, and yet it 

is made up of all the primary colors. And light 

is the symbol of truth. 

The Old Dramatists. 

NOVEMBER SIXTH 

Do not look for the Millennium as imminent. 
One generation is apt to get all the wear it can 
out of the cast clothes of the last, and is always 
sure to use up every paling of the old fence that 
will hold a nail in building the new. 

The Biglonv Papers. 

[96] 



NOVEMBER SEVENTH 

From lower to the higher next, 

Not to the top, is Nature's text; 

And embryo Good, to reach full stature, 

Absorbs the Evil in its nature. 

The Biglonv Papers. 

NOVEMBER EIGHTH 

Each man is some man's servant; every soul 
Is by some other's presence quite discrov^^ned; 
Each owes the next through all the imperfect 
round. 
Yet not with mutual help; each man is his own 
goal, 
And the whole earth must stop to pay his toll. 

The Pioneer. 

NOVEMBER NINTH 

Humor is always a main ingredient in highly 
poetic natures. It is almost always the super- 
ficial indication of a rich vein of pathos, nay, of 
tragic feeling, below. 

Con'versat'tons on Some of the Old Poets. 

NOVEMBER TENTH Martin Luther'' s Birthday. 

Souls destined to o'erleap the vulgar lot. 

And mould the world unto the scheme of God, 

Have a foreconsciousness of their high doom. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

[97] 



NOVEMBER ELEVENTH 

Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passed 
To show us what a woman true may be; . . . 
Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity 
Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, 
But rather cleared thy inner eyes to see 
How many simple ways there are to bless. 

Sonnets. 



NOVEMBER TWELFTH 

Reverence is the foundation of all poetry. 
From reverence the spirit climbs on to love, and 
thence beholds all things. 

Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. 



NOVEMBER THIRTEENTH 

Nothing is so apt to lead men astray as their 
sense of the ludicrous; no kindly feeling is so 
apt to make them say harsh things. 

The Old Dramatists. 



NOVEMBER FOURTEENTH 

Nowadays men are shy of letting their true 
selves be seen, as if in some former life they had 
committed a crime, and were all the time afraid 
of discovery and arrest in this. 

Cambridge Thirty Tears Ago. 

[98] 



NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH 

God be thanked for such a crystal night 
As fills the spirit with good store of thoughts, 
That, like a cheering fire of walnut, crackle 
Upon the hearthstone of the heart, and cast 
A mild home-glow o'er all Humanity ! 

Neav Tears E've. 



NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH 

It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, 
not always to leave it so. 

TAe Bigloiv Papers. 



NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH 

Yet to have greatly dreamed precludes low ends. 
Great days have ever such a morning-red, 
On such a base great futures are built up. 
And aspiration, though not put in act. 
Comes back to ask its plighted troth again. 

Columbus. 



NOVEMBER EIGHTEENTH 

With every anguish of our earthly part 

The spirit's sight grows clearer; this was meant 

When Jesus touched the blind man's lids with 

clay. 

On the Death of a Friend" s Child. 

[99] 



NOVEMBER NINETEENTH 

No man, if he try, can enjoy one thing at a 
time; nor can he love one thing truly, and be 
indifferent to any other the most remote. 

CoTfuersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

NOVEMBER TWENTIETH 

Truth comes huddling forth like molten iron, 
which, though it be beautified by the little 
swarms of bee-like sparks that hover round it, 
yet runs into the nearest channel and there soon 
hardens, taking the chance shape of its mould. 

The Old Dramatists. 

NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 

Chances have laws as fixed as planets have. 
And disappointment's dry and bitter root, 
Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool 
Of the world's scorn, are the right mother-milk 
To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind. 
And break a pathway to those unknown realms 
That in the earth's broad shadow lie enthralled. 

Columbus. 

NOVEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 

George Eli of s Birthday. 

The poet need only unroof his own heart. All 
that makes happiness or misery under every 

[ 100 ] 



roof of the wide world, whether of palace or 
hovel, is working also in that narrow yet bound- 
less sphere. 

Con-versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

NOVEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 

The hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day ; 
I hear the soul of Man around me waking, 
Like a great sea, its frozen fetters breaking, 
And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray. . . . 
And every hour new signs of promise tell 
That the great soul shall once again be free. 

Sonnets. 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 

Whatever is in its place is in the highest place; 
whatever is right is graceful, noble, expedient; 
and the universal hiss of the world shall fall upon 
it as a benediction, and go up to the ear of God 
as the most moving prayer in its behalf. 

The Old Dramatists. 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 

The homage that a man does in his secretest 
soul is visible to all time; there will be a cringe 
and stoop in his shoulders in spite of him. 

The Old Dramatists. 

[ loi] 



NOVEMBEJl TWENTY-SIXTH 

This huge Minster of the Universe, 
Whose smallest oratories are glorious worlds, 
With painted oriels of dawn and sunset; 
Whose carved ornaments are systems grand, 
Orion kneeling in his starry niche, 
The Lyre whose strings give music audible 
To holy ears, and countless splendors more. 
Crowned by the blazing Cross high-hung o'er all. 

Neiv Tear s E've. 

NOVEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread 
Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death. 
The visionary hand of Might-have-been 
Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim ! 

On the Death of a Friend' s Child. 

NOVEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

The supernatural calling carries a pain with 
it, too. The ancients were wont to say that he 
who saw a god must die. Perhaps this only 
meant that he who has gazed deepest into the 
vast mysteries of being, and held closest con- 
verse with the Eternal Love, is overpowered by 
the yearning and necessity to speak that which 
can never be really spoken, and which yet seems 
ever hovering in fiery words upon the tongue. 

The Old Dramatists. 
[ 102 ] 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 

Some people nowadays seem to have hit upon 

a new moralization of the moth and the candle. 

They would lock up the light of truth, lest poor 

Psyche should put it out in her effort to draw 

nigh to it. 

The Biglonju Papers. 

NOVEMBER THIRTIETH 

The wild, free woods make no man halt or 
blind; 
Cities rob men of eyes and hands and feet. 
Patching one whole of many incomplete; 
The general preys upon the individual mind. 
And each alone is helpless as the wind. 

The Pioneer. 



[ 103 ] 



DECEMBER 



DECEMBER FIRST 

' I HAT is poetry which makes sorrow lovely 
and joy solemn to us, and reveals to us the 
holiness of things. 

Con^versations on Some of the Old Poets. 

DECEMBER SECOND 

The intellect has only one failing, which, to be 
sure, is a very considerable one; it has no con- 
science. Napoleon is the readiest instance of 
this. If his heart had borne any proportion to 
his brain he had been one of the greatest men in 

all history. 

The Old Dramatists. 

DECEMBER THIRD 

This is what the Roman Church does for 
religion, feeding the soul not with the essential 
religious sentiment, not with a drop or two of 
the tincture of worship, but making us feel one 
by one all those original elements of which 

worship is composed. 

A Fe^w Bits of Roman Mosaic. 

[ 105] 



DECEMBER FOURTH 

High genius may be fiery and impetuous, but 
it can never bully and look big; it does not defy 
death and futurity; for a doubt of its monarchy 
over them never overflushed its serene counte- 
nance. 

The Old Dramatists. 



DECEMBER FIFTH 

Time can never put Eternity off more than a 
day; swift and strong comes the fair to-morrow, 
and with it that clearer perception of the beauti- 
ful, which sets another star in the bright coronet 
of Truth. 

The Old Dramatists. 



DECEMBER SIXTH 

Who to the Right can feel himself the truer 
For being gently patient with the wrong, 
Who sees a brother in the evil-doer. 

And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his 
song — 
This, this is he for whom the world is waiting 
To sing the beatings of its mighty heart. 

Ode. 



[ io6] 



DECEMBER SEVENTH 

Who believes that his cup is overflowing but 
he v^^ho has rarely seen anything but the dry 
bottom of it ? Poverty is the only seasoner of 
felicity. 

The Old Dramatists. 



DECEMBER EIGHTH 

These outward seemings are but shows 

Whereby the body sees and knows; 

Far down beneath, forever flows 

A stream of subtlest sympathies 

That make our spirits strangely wise 

In awe, and fearful bodings dim 

Which, from the sense's outer rim. 

Stretch forth beyond our thought and sight, 

Fine arteries of circling light. 

Pulsed outward from the Infinite. 

A Mystical Ballad. 



DECEMBER NINTH MiltorC s Birthday. 

A man not second among those who lived 
To show us that the poet's lyre demands 
An arm of tougher sinew than the sword. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 



[ 107 ] 



DECEMBER TENTH 

For the soul that hath Hved well, 
For the soul that child-like is, 
There is quiet in the spell 
That brings back early memories. 



The Serenade. 



DECEMBER ELEVENTH 

Ther 's a wonderful power in latitude 
To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude. 

The Bigloiv Papers. 

DECEMBER TWELFTH 

True enough, thought I, this is the Ready- 
made Age. It is quicker being covered than 
fitted. So we all go to the slop-shop and come 
out uniformed, every mother's son with habits 
of thinking and doing cut on one pattern, with 
no special reference to his peculiar build. 

A Moosehead Journal. 

DECEMBER THIRTEENTH 

I believed the poets; it is they 

Who utter wisdom from the central deep. 

And, listening to the inner flow of things, 

Speak to the age out of eternity. 

Columbus. 

[ io8 ] 



DECEMBER FOURTEENTH 

The present moves attended 
With all of brave and excellent and fair 
That made the old time splendid. 

To the Past. 



DECEMBER FIFTEENTH 

No power can die that ever w^rought for Truth ; 

Thereby a lav\^ of Nature it became, 
And lives unw^ithered in its sinewy youth, 

When he who called it forth is but a name. 

Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing. 



DECEMBER SIXTEENTH Beetho'ven's Birthday. 

And one of his great charities 

Is Music, and it doth not scorn 

To close the lids upon the eyes 

Of the polluted and forlorn. 

The Forlorn. 



DECEMBER SEVENTEENTH IVhittiers Birthday. 
There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement 

heart 
Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker 

apart, 
And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect, 
Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect; 
[ 109] 



There was ne'er a man born who had more of the 

swing 
Of the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing. 

A Fable for Critics. 



DECEMBER EIGHTEENTH 

God's messengers always look like shabby 
fellows to the rest of the world, and often are not 
recognized, even by those of whom they ask hos- 
pitality, till they are gone forever. 

The Old Dramatists. 



DECEMBER NINETEENTH 

It is the advantage of fame that it is always 
privileged to take the world by the button, and 
the thing is weightier for Shakespeare's uttering 
it by the whole amount of his personality. 

The Bigloiv Papers. 



DECEMBER TWENTIETH 

There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; 
The river was numb and could not speak, 
For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun. 
The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

[no] 



DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 

Taste is the next gift to genius. They are the 
Eros and Anteios of Art. Without his brother, 
the first must remain but a child still. 

Cotfuersations on Some of the Old Poets. 

DECEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 

For God's law, since the starry song began. 
Hath been, and still for evermore must be. 
That every deed that shall outlast Time's span 
Must goad the soul to be erect and free. 

Sonnets. 

DECEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 

One poor day ! — 
Remember w^hose and not how short it is ! . . . 
A lavish day! One day, with life and heart. 

Is more than time enough to find a world. 

Columbus. 

DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 

"The Holy Supper is kept, indeed. 

In whatso we share with another's need; 

Not what we give, but what we share — 

For the gift without the giver is bare; 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three — ■ 

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

[Ill] 



DECEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH Christmas Day. 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, 

And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 
With lightsome green of ivy and holly. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 

Upon the smooth wake of a year o'erpast. 
We see the black clouds furling, one by one, 
From the advancing majesty of Truth. 

iVifou Year s Enje. 

DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 

A good life behind him is the best thing to 
keep an old man's shoulders from shivering at 
every breath of sorrow or ill-fortune. 

The Bigloav Papers. 

DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

It is true enough that hunger is the best urger 
of the soul; but it is the hunger, not of the body, 
but of the soul, which is love. 

The Old Dramatists. 

DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 

The trial still is the strength's complement, 
And the uncertain, dizzy path that scales 
The sheer heights of supremest purposes 
Is steeper to the angel than the child. 

Columbus. 
[112] 



DECEMBER THIRTIETH 

Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow; 
Our only sure possession is the past. 

An Indian-summer Re'verie. 

DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST 

I watch the circle of the eternal years, 
And read forever in the storied page 
One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and 
tears — 
One onward step of Truth from age to age. 

Ele^ on the Death of Dr. Channing. 



[113] 




















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